ZAGREB, 8 March 2022 - Prime Minister Andrej Plenković congratulated women on International Women's Day on Tuesday, thanking them for making Croatian society more progressive, humane and better, and in particular for nurturing family values.

"Achieving equality for women in society is our firm commitment. With the synergy of the measures for greater employability of women, advancing demographic measures and the resolute fight against all forms of discrimination and violence against women, we are resolute in creating a society of equal opportunities," Plenković said on his Twitter account.

ZAGREB, 8 March 2022 - Marking International Women's Day, the non-governmental organisation U ime obitelji (In the Name of the Family) said on Tuesday that the two most frequent forms of social injustice that a lot of women in Croatia are faced with is working on Sunday and the the discrimination women who choose to be mothers are subjected to on the labour market.

The NGO underscored that tens of thousands of women who work six days a week are compelled out of fear of losing their jobs to work a seventh day, Sundays and public holidays, without any or with a minimum benefit.

In addition, women who choose to be mothers are left without jobs after falling pregnant, or when they return from maternity leave they are often demoted to a less paid job.

"Recently, we have witnessed an especially negative campaign and stigmatisation of women who choose to stay at home and dedicate themselves to raising their children and caring for their families. Those attacks were launched from positions of political power, focused on beneficiaries of stay at home parenting," the NGO said.

The NGO said that in a plural society every woman has to have the right to choose what sort of life she considers to be the most appropriate for her and her family. The NGO also considers that it is important to financially value often unnoticed work done by women in the family. 

The NGO called on women to report any form of discrimination and on employers and the competent authorities to consistently implement the law. The NGO also called on the government to take the necessary steps to ensure non-working Sundays as a free day for the family and to prevent any discrimination, particularly against pregnant women and mothers.

Congratulating women on International Women's Day, the NGO greeted all women, especially those who, despite the numerous obstacles and pressure, manage to successfully balance their family and work life.

ZAGREB, 8 March 2022 - Croatian Parliament Speaker Gordan Jandroković extended his best wishes for International Women's Day on Tuesday, saying that a lot of effort still needed to be made to achieve equality between women and men in all spheres of society.

"Today, when we observe International Women's Day, we remember the long way women had to go to have their basic human and civil rights recognised. Although their struggle began in the early 20th century, a lot of effort still needs to be made to achieve equality between women and men in all social spheres," Jandroković said in his message.

He said that Croatia was working on empowering women and protecting their rights, that gender equality was one of the highest values of the country's constitutional system, and that the aim was to achieve a tolerant society with equal opportunities for all.

International Women's Day is an opportunity to thank all women for their daily contribution to the social, economic and cultural property of our country. By protecting women from all forms of violence and discrimination, we are ensuring their full political, economic and social equality, Jandroković said, also highlighting the need to establish a balance between women's family life and work.

He concluded by quoting Pope Francis as saying in his New Year's message that "since mothers give life and women keep this world, let us all make greater efforts to promote mothers and to protect women," calling for an end to violence against women.

March the 8th, 2022 - Intellias has posted on social media that it will now move its proposed Serbian development centre, which would have been located in the city of Novi Sad, to the Croatian capital of Zagreb, citing the Serbian Government's pro-Russian position as the reason for the decision.

The company took to Facebook to post the following:

''Dear colleages, partners, and followers,

As you probably know, we've been planning to launch a new development centre in Novi Sad, Serbia recently. However, taking into consideration the pro-Russian position of the Serbian government, we made a decision to move our delivery centre to Zagreb, Croatia.

The reaction of the international communities and governments to the recent events in Ukraine is extremely important to us. Especially when it comes to the countries where our offices are located.

On top of that, Croatia is home to a strong IT community and well-developed infrastructure More than 60,000 IT specialists work in the country. So, it's our strong belief that together we will be able to provide our clients with quality technology solutions and services. 

#StandWithUkraine''

For more, make sure to check out our politics section.

March 8, 2022 - International Women’s Day, a day that celebrates the economic, political, and social achievements of women, is traditionally celebrated every year on the 8th of March. Women’s day has been embraced by many cultures around the world including Croatia, of course. TCN provides an answer to the question of why exactly the world celebrates this historically really important event.

For us to understand this event, we need to go back to where it all started - the United States of America. More precisely, 28th of February 1909 in New York, the Socialist Party of America organized a rally in honor of workers of a clothing factory who had protested against working conditions the year before. In 1910, International Women’s Day was founded in Copenhagen as a part of the movement for women’s rights and the rise of support for the exercising of women’s voting rights. Multiple countries followed after that - Austria, Germany, Switzerland, which had millions of men and women marching for, besides rights to vote and performing public duties, women’s rights to work, train, and ultimately prevention of discrimination of women at work. During World War I, the march was used for antiwar protests and some of them were held on the 8th of March. The date of commemoration became official in 1975 when the United Nations adopted it as a “mainstream global holiday”. In some areas of the world, International Women’s Day is still reflected as its political origins - being marked by protests and calls for radical change whereas in the West, the event has more sociocultural characteristics and the celebration is centered on “womanhood”.

Women's march - (Source: Libela - portal o rodu, spolu i demokraciji)

When it comes to Croatia, its history of IWD is tightly connected to Yugoslavia, which makes sense since the event was devised by socialist parties in America. Communist countries were at the forefront of their celebrations and initially, a militant international event became “Mother’s Day”, “Women’s Day” and an opportunity to gift the “fairer sex”. History of the 8th of March (8. Mart) celebrations shows us how important it was to celebrate this Day in the spirit of its original politics, against bourgeois “fashion” under the slogan of fighting for equal political and social rights, against fascism and mobilizing women workers, peasants, and intellectuals. The day was part of the Revolution and if the individual violates or undermines the holiday “also undermines and devalues the continuity of the Revolution itself!”. This was quoted in an open letter during the Conference for Social Activity of Croatian Women held somewhere between the 1960s and 1980s. In the 70s, the female questions and initiatives in Yugoslavia were under the heavy influence of central power.

Given that the “law” was quite strict, it is not surprising that gifts to mothers, teachers, and other women were a mandatory way to celebrate IWD. Talking with people who experienced the event during those times, I realized that flowers were THE gift for this occasion, particularly red carnations. These flowers are a symbol of labor movement and would always be gifted to women workers in various companies. Children would gift teachers with red roses or red carnations every year as a thank you for the effort they invested in their work. As previously mentioned, flowers were mandatory for mothers as well. After school and gifting their teachers, children would bring their gifts and flowers home to their mothers - if they couldn’t get flowers, homemade custom-made cards would suffice. Husbands would usually bring red roses to their wives as an appreciation for their love and effort. Multiple cities in Croatia would have their squares filled with lilies and primroses and men and women would join in celebrations of this holiday.

Today, these celebrations (or protests) in Croatia are more focused on social-cultural aspects of women in society. For instance, a feminist collective faKTIV has organized multiple marches called “Night March” whose fields of activity include the fight for women’s labor and social rights, against gender-based violence against women, and advocacy for reproductive and sexual rights. It is held every year in Zagreb on the 8th of March with other multiple collectives doing their own marches (protests) all over Croatia.

The gifting aspect of the “holiday” has died down a bit with the fall of Yugoslavia but the commercial and marketability potentials of IWD started growing in recent years. On one side, there are protests and marches for women’s rights, on the other flower shops, supermarkets, cafes, and other companies are profiting. The West realized its potential and cashed in on this date with various theme-based parties, events and more. Croatia, on the other hand, has not yet recognized Women’s Day as a holiday.

Throughout history, IWD showed us struggles and efforts of women being equal in every aspect of society, artificially constructed holidays to elevate every part of “women being” and in the end, monetary and market power of “celebrating” women. Croatia has not yet recognized Women’s Day as a holiday. However, that shouldn’t stop us from celebrating important women in our lives. Buy a simple red rose, red carnation or if you’re lucky and haven’t experienced snow in your area, pick spring flowers that just started to bloom. From everyone in TCN, happy International Women’s Day or how we Croatians like to say: “Sretan Vam 8. Mart!”.

For more, check out our lifestyle section.

March 8, 2022 - In recent days it has been said that many islands have already received designations of origin or geographical origin for their olive oils, but Hvar olive oil has not yet. Why? And why is it important to have this label?

Olive oils from Cres, Krka, Korčula, Šolta, and most recently Brač are mentioned, while the people of Hvar are currently proud of their multi-millennium oil production, which has been used as food, medicine, and light on their island for a long time, writes Slobodna Dalmacija.

Today, according to the agricultural advisor mr. sc. Stanislav Štambuk, this island area cultivates more than 250,000 olive trees. Farmers have made good progress in terms of proper implementation of agro-technical measures, fruit picking and processing, and oil storage. There are several modern oil mills, so extra virgin olive oils are most often produced.

This is sufficiently evidenced by the numerous recognitions of Hvar olive growers and oil mills won in the country and abroad (USA, Japan...), it is surprising that an island of less than 300 square kilometers has as many as six protected values ​​on the UNESCO List of Tangible and Intangible Heritage (Faro Choir, agave lace, procession 'Za Krizen', klapa song, Mediterranean food, and the art of drywall construction), but no indication of origin or geographical origin among 33 Croatian agricultural and food products registered with the European Union.

Slobodna Dalmacija decided to check what the problem is, especially because these labels are on the one hand a valorization of achievements so far and on the other an incentive to follow the path of progress and better quality even more decisively.

Olives from Hvar (Photo: Mario Romulić)

''There has been talking for a long time on Hvar about initiating this procedure, however, the initiative was somewhat more seriously concretized at the end of 2019 with representatives of the Association of Olive Growers St. Spirijun in Milna. Since then, several enthusiasts have been working continuously to gather the necessary arguments, such as historical evidence, data on varieties, geo-climatic conditions, traditions, processing, use of names and labels, invoices, delivery notes, media articles ..., and when all this is completed we could at least go for a geographical indication because the differences between the designations are small anyway, and the benefits are almost the same'', said prof. dr. sc. Ivica Ljubenkov, an expert who also helped the people of Brač in their candidacy for the origin label.

A tradition dating back to the ancient greeks

One of the problems, as been found out, is that on Hvar, which is famous as the sunniest island (more than 2,700 hours of sunshine a year), there is not a single well-known indigenous olive variety, such as people from Šolta have Levantine, or people from Korčula have Lastovka.

And the candidacy for the label of origin is somehow the easiest to 'wrap in cellophane' of these original varieties, the logic of the European Union is not always in line with the thinking of our people.

Also, it must be added, that despite the declarative desire, the road to acquiring the label is long and difficult, in part due to the low involvement of some olive growers and members of the association.

''We are really proud that in the upper part we have evidence of olive growing and olive oil production from the time of the ancient Greeks. This fact is confirmed by an olive tree from the Kuharača site near Zastražišće. The ancient olive tree is truly a natural rarity and a kind of cultural monument. Evidence of olive processing also exists at the Kupinovik site near the Old Town - Faros, next to the old Roman villa rusticae. There are important artifacts such as two olive presses, a mill with a millstone, several basins for sedimentation, several oysters for storing oil... Numerous remains of architecture testify to multiple alterations, which means that the villa functioned for a longer period of 1 to the 4th century'', says the young, but multi-award-winning olive grower Eva Marija Čurin from Gdynia.

Olives from Hvar (Photo: Mario Romulić)

She is also the secretary of the association, which has more than 150 members and is actively involved in the process of obtaining the label. She adds that the "Days of Olive Oil Days of the Island of Hvar" event in Jelsa is organized every year, with the aim of encouraging olive growers to socialize, have a healthy competitive spirit, educate and, above all, increase the quality of Hvar olive oil.

Therefore, the goal is to contribute to the development of olive growing on the island of Hvar, to gain in importance both locally and internationally.

However, the association will not achieve this without its members, so the event was launched to educate these valuable olive growers about the benefits of the label and to encourage them to be more involved in collecting materials needed to obtain it.

''If we recapitulate everything that Professor Ljubenkov and our Eva Marija told us, I would like to tell the membership that, in addition to the objective benefits we would get from labels, they also protect the consumer himself, as the end-user of Hvar olive oil. The labels certainly bring protection against unauthorized use and damage to the reputation of oil that would be produced on Hvar according to pre-established rules. In this way, the consumer would have a guarantee that it is an oil that is recognized and protected specialty of the area from which it originates, and we are aware of the quality we have can only say that this label will be only the first step in further promotion of Hvar olive oil, the island where we live and produce'', concluded Đorđan Gurdulić, president of the Association of Olive Growers "St. Špirijun" from Hvar.

When it comes to olive oil, Croatia is one of the leading countries in the industry. From Istria to Dalmatia, you can find all the information you need to know about the origins, processes, and where to buy Croatian and Hvar olive oil on the Total Croatia page, now in your language!

For more on Croatian products, producers, companies and exports, make sure to check out Made in Croatia.

March 8, 2022 - The government has made a decision that fixes the margin of oil traders and temporarily reduces excise duties on diesel and gasoline to mitigate rising prices. Thus, as of today, new fuel prices at Croatian gas stations are more expensive. You can follow the latest fuel prices on this page.

The new price of regular diesel is now HRK 12.51, and Class Plus diesel HRK 13.56. Ordinary petrol, ie Eurosuper 95 now costs 12.18 kuna, while Eurosuper 100 costs 13.11 kuna.

Recall, the government has made a decision which fixes the margin of oil traders and temporarily reduces excise duties on diesel and gasoline to mitigate rising prices, said Prime Minister Andrej Plenković in the introduction to the government session, writes N1.

"Fixing the price could lead to the closure of some gas stations"

If the retail price fix was extended, many distributors in the market would face the situation of operating at a loss, which could lead to the closure of some gas stations, he added.

"In order to avoid such a situation, we will enable their further business by fixing the total margin for diesel and gasoline at 0.75 kunas per liter and 0.50 kuna per liter for blue diesel," said Plenković.

Excise duties and margins will be valid for 90 days

In addition, he added, the amendments to the Decree on Excise Duties will reduce the number of excise duties on diesel and gasoline by 90 lipas per liter of unleaded motor gasoline and 20 lipas per liter of diesel fuel for a period of 90 days.

"In this way, we want to contribute to reducing the price shock on our citizens, and according to our calculations, this will lead to a reduction in state budget revenues from excise duties on energy over 150 million kunas," said Plenković

According to government estimates, the new measures will keep the price increase per liter of fuel, whether diesel or petrol, which would amount to around two kunas in real market trends, from an increase of 80 lipas to 1.20 kuna.

For more, check out our politics section.

 March 8, 2022 - FIFA has finally made a decision on the contracts of Croatian footballers in Russia. 

The contracts of foreign footballers and coaches employed in the Russian and Ukrainian championships will be "suspended" until the end of the season, and in the spring they will be able to freely engage in other clubs and countries, FIFA announced on Monday, as reported by Gol.hr.

On the Russian side, which has been banned from the sports world since the invasion of Ukraine and deprived of international competitions, the goal is to "facilitate the departure" of all those who have not found an agreement with their clubs, explains FIFA.

Therefore, they will have the “right to unilaterally suspend their employment contract” until June 30, 2022, and will be able to play for clubs from another championship, even outside the transition period. Foreign players and coaches in Ukraine will benefit from the same provision, to allow them to “work and receive a salary” while the conflicts continue.

Finally, underage players fleeing Ukraine will be treated by FIFA as underage refugees, thus entering an international transfer market that is otherwise closed to under-18s.

FIFA, which has already banned Russia from participating in the 2022 World Cup but risks appealing to the Court of Arbitration for Sport against the decision, reiterated its "condemnation of Russia's use of force in Ukraine" and called for a "quick cessation of hostilities".

FIFPro called FIFA’s temporary solution “too timid.”

“It will be hard for players to find employment for the remainder of the season with uncertainty looming over them and, within a few weeks, they will be in a very difficult situation once again. It is unsatisfactory even for players who are tied to short-term contracts in Russia — where contracts typically end in December — and who may not want or be able to return after 30 June 2022.”

This includes Croatian footballers Dejan Lovren, Nikola Moro, Filip Uremović, Tin Jedvaj, Zoran Nižić, Silvije Begić, Filip Mrzljak, and Mateo Barać. 

To read more about sport in Croatia, follow TCN’s dedicated page.